


Commuters

by BlueMonkey



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Freeform, Gen, M/M, Real Life, circling around each other, commuting, real life AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 06:17:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1540721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueMonkey/pseuds/BlueMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't know each other. </p>
<p>They only see each other on the same line every day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Commuters

The carriage buzzes to a start, picking up speed in a way that used to make him nauseous, and Brixton pulls away in the distance. The small world around him is crowded with commuters, some of them—like himself—have managed to get a spot out of luck or out of having been on the line for long enough, but most are standing, holding on to supports to correct their balance in turns and during brakes. It still feels as much like a human zoo as it did a little over a month ago now, except it is too quiet for that. Sometimes Kili half expects someone to start shrieking in the distance, signalling an alarm to the rest of his kind. But herds don't do that, not when they're boxed in and the predators are indistinguishable from the rest.

Ringing phones in a too brightly lit industrial hall are waiting for him. He lives in a shitty side of town, barely able to pay the rent despite the ridiculously small space, with a bed and a kitchen crammed into the same room, and just a small five square feet bathroom to make sure he doesn't have to share his privacy with others. There isn't a garden, and the park is littered with junk and with clutterings of people that'll look at you until you leave. He doesn't know why he ever considered this to be a decent fallback, but here he is, forced into this misery by government cuts that made his perfectly wonderful original job redundant, and the temp agency was adamant that tech support was the only viable option available for someone with his skills. Which is ridiculous, really, because he doesn't know the first thing about computers and he fails to see how knowing any plant or animal by name, species and characteristics is useful for helping reconnect a modem.

He's a quick study, at least, and they didn't sack him after the first few weeks. So he gets to keep his job and his housing a while longer, as long as it takes to find something better. Something that preferably allows him to stop traveling underground. Maybe something closer to home.

The carriage loses speed and pulls to a stop. Stockwell. The book that is on his lap by default is leafed back a page—he will have little chance of digesting the page he is on anyway, because he never does manage to focus very well after Stockwell. There's several empty spots opposite him. His eyes browse over the spread depicting several species of starling on the left and a textual description on the right. But his eyes flit beyond the book to the empty seats, and he feels warmer when they land on a familiar figure.

The man doesn't see him. Of course he doesn't; Kili makes sure he is never caught. It would be awkward, and he'd risk losing him to an other carriage or a later ride. He sneaks in glances over the edge of his book from time to time, and when he doesn't, his insides feel like a pile of sticky gummy bears after an earthquake. All that is bleak and pointless in Kili's day does not apply to his ten minutes between Stockwell and Green Park, when he allows himself to succumb to daydreams of a better life, of a life in which someone cares. A life in which someone notices him. A life in which he dares laugh and isn't the odd warden recluse who used to live in national woods but lost his job and is forced into an ordinary job where he can't relate with smoking coworkers his age talking about going out, getting laid, _cellphones_.

"Excuse me."

He snaps out of it. A looks pointedly at the half a spot available next to him. Oh. Kili squishes to the right, despite there being little room left, and bows his head. "Sorry."

The man mutters something along the lines of, 'that's alright', or 'thank you'. Something polite that he doesn't mean but says anyway. It doesn't matter. Kili is shaken from his thoughts anyway and, distracted, he doesn't know how to return to the pages of his ornithology book. When he lets his gaze go around the carriage, the man opposite him is just lolling his head forward to try for a short nap.

He should say something. He should keep the spot next to him free, the next time he gets the chance, and hope that maybe the man will sit there. Maybe they'll strike up a conversation. They will probably have nothing in common, and although the man has longer, raw hair and the marks that in younger years he must have sported several piercings, he will probably turn out to be a boring office clerk or something.

Except the man always sits on the opposite side of the carriage. Never on his side, never.

Oh, who is he kidding? He won't ever talk to this man, and there will come a day when either of them finds a better job, or changes the pattern they happen to share by chance, and they will be out of each other's lives for good. He's probably married, has seven children and a dog. Who _is_ he kidding?

But for now, Kili likes to dream.

* * *

Caged.

There is no other way to describe him, he looks like a caged animal. Especially as he sits now, restless between a slumbering man in a suit and a younger man peacefully bobbing along to the beat of whatever is on his music player. He is alert but distracted. Anything will draw his attention. He has been so for as long as he has been taking this line. He sticks out like a sore thumb, like someone who hasn't gotten used to the rhythm of the city, who most likely never will. He is the only bit of chaos in a space full of mutes.

Fili cannot help but return to him.

He averts his eyes when the stranger moves to look his way. He has become skilled at pretending to be busy with something even though he's not. Next to the stranger, a woman he recognises from frequently taking the same line at the same time rolls her eyes at him. She's right, he thinks. It's ridiculous. He just doesn't want to ruin anything. He knows exactly at what door to get in to make it to the same carriage. It's the best moment of his day. 

The man has no idea, and it makes Fili feel a bit of a stalker, but he likes the days when all the seats are occupied and he gets to stand. He has managed to stand right in front of him a few times, and he knows it's not kind of him because it flusters the stranger terribly when people get too close to him—social anxiety, he assumes—but he simply enjoys it when he can, because it's the closest he will ever get.

The man has the looks of a guy who could be popular. In an other life he probably would be, but instead he reads books about animals and his phone is a model from the nineties. He is hopelessly outdated.

A female voice announces Victoria Station. This is his exit. 

What if it wouldn't be?

What if he'd just stay where he was, work regulations be damned, and find out where the stranger gets out?

He doesn't, of course; he never does. Bound by duty and convention, he gets up and offers his seat to the person standing closest to him. He doesn't look back when he moves to the exit, although he wants to. Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow will be an other day.

**Author's Note:**

> Home sick; this is me dabbling something free-form by myself after a long time of only writing with a co-author (Thorny, you're awesome), so I'm slightly self-aware about it. Let me know what you think!


End file.
